
SABBATH-SCHOOL LESSON QUARTERLY
37
Notes
1.
"Why?"— Our poor human heart often asks "Why?"
when it is better to trust to God's infinite wisdom, power, and
love, and eternal, rightful sovereignty. Let us not, by our mur-
muring, place ourselves on the outside of. His purposes toward
every soul. "For I know the *thoughts that I think toward you,
saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you
an expected end." Jer. 29:11.
2.
"Vessels of wrath."— God did not make them such —
they fitted themselves for that; and :He, the great, loving .God,
endures with much long-suffering. They need not remain vessels
of wrath. "ln a great house there are . . . vessels, . .
some
to honor, and some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge him-
;self from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and
meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work."
2 Tim. 2:20, 21.
3.
"Even us."— Every saved soul among Jews and Gentiles
was a demonstration of God's mercy toward all; for He "is no
respecter of persons," and everyman will be left without excuse.
•
4. "Osee" is a Greek form of
.
the Hebrew "Hosea,." Read
the passage in Hosea, and note the class of people out of whom
God gathers His people. See also 1 Cor. 6:9-11 and many other
passages.
5.
"Ye are not My people."— The book of Acts and the
epistles of Paul are records of the transforming power of God's
mercy, and so •has been the history of Christianity from that day
to this. From sin to righteousness, from darkness to light, from
vice to virtue, from death to life, from paganism, with all its sins,
to Christianity, with all its graces
such has been the transform-
ing power of His mercy and grace. In lands of the greatest dark-
ness, where righteousness has been unknown, there the Word has
begotten "children of the living God."
6.
"Esaias."— A form of "Isaiah." Remnant.— The Re-
vised Version has a stronger thought: "It is the remnant that
shall be saved." The quotation is from Isa. 10:22: "For though
thy people,Israel, be as the sand of the sea,
only a remnant
of
them shal return." R.V. It is ever the remnant, those who
yield to God's purpose.
7.
"Finish the work."— Yet God will finish His work.
Man's unbelief and hardness of heart will not frustrate God's
work forever. Sometime it will close quickly, and that day draws
on apace.
8.
"Whosoever."— This is in harmony with all that has been
said by the apostle; for notwithstanding God's sovereignty and